Parallel Mothers
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How important is it to you to know who are your biological ancestors? If you learned that some ancestor was murdered by the Nazis or some other dictator and thrown into an unmarked grave and there was now a chance to identify him or her and take their remains and give it a proper burial, would you be intent on doing it? Since we are trying to ask some challenging questions, let us ask you some additional contemporary questions, which other films in addition to this one have brought up. If you were to get a notice from the hospital where one of your children was born that notified you that they were computerizing their records and they determined that your child was accidentally switched at birth, would you want to meet your biological child? Would you tell your grown child or children? What if you learned about this error several weeks after you took your child home from the hospital? What would you do? How would you react? In these days of modern DNA testing, true maternity and paternity can be determined. The first and latter hypotheticals are a part of the theme of this film. It is from Spain and stars Penelope Cruz and Milena Smit as the “Parallel Mothers.” It is directed by Pedro Almodóvar. The movie is very well done, and we believe will stimulate the kind of questions that we raised above. Earlier films that have dealt with variations of this theme are:

Like Father Like Son – a Japanese film where the parents learned that their child was switched at birth when the child is 6 years old.

Philomena – deals with the Catholic Church and unwed mothers and what happens to their babies.

The Kids Are All Right – grown children track down their sperm donor biological father.

People Like Us – encountering siblings that you never knew existed.

Mother And Child – yearning for a connection with biological parents that you never knew.

Parallel Mothers is a griping tale of mothers and children and even generational trauma. It is not only well worth seeing but will also stimulate discussion as have these other films that have dealt with related subjects. It is a very good contender for Best International Film for the 2022 Oscars that are coming up in a week from when this is being written.

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Pain and Glory-rm

The main character of this movie is a film director Salvador Mallo (Antonio Banderas) who appears to be an aging man with various physical conditions but is still under the influence of his childhood memories and experiences. He has recently learned that an earlier very successful movie that he made is going to be restored and he is invited to present it with the lead actor, Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia) whom he hasn’t spoken to for 32 years since the film was originally made. The director was angry at the actor because he didn’t play his role the way the director had envisioned it. This scenario becomes a vehicle for the main character to relive and examine his childhood and early years which included his relationship with his mother (Penelope Cruz) as well as his attraction to heroin. His earlier sexual experiences with a man is also highlighted.

The movie is supposed to be semi autobiographical of the filmmaker Pedro Almodovar (whatever that means). While the movie shows meaningful childhood early life experiences and how it impacted the course of the character’s life in later years, we didn’t feel the storyline captured and held our interest. The movie was well-acted and produced, with topnotch acting and production. You forget that you are watching a film in Spanish and reading English subtitles. However, we still can’t give it a strong recommendation. (2019)

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